Carrier
1st Jun 2004, 07:09
I have flown aircraft owned by three separate operators in Africa and have been a right seat passenger in aircraft owned by three other operators. All these aircraft have a panel mounted Garmin GPS 100. This non-moving map GPS was one of the first units on the market. Its advent must have been very welcome in an area of widely separated VORs and NDBs, which sometimes do not operate anyway! The early to market popularity of the Garmin GPS 100 would explain why there are so many of these units still in use. This GPS still does an excellent job except for one problem. The display is often unreadable, particularly if one is wearing sunglasses.
Many of my flights are eastbound in the early morning and westbound in the late afternoon, straight into the sun. Good sunglasses are needed and it is almost impossible to read the GPS. It is made worse by the units all being mounted in the centre stack so that the white shirt of the right seat occupant reflects off the glass front of the GPS display. Perhaps Garmin only tested the GPS 100 in the perpetual gloom of the Pacific Northwest!
There is no problem with reading all the other instruments with their clearly visible white numbers and needles. I am surprised that the GPS 100 was released with this weak display but it presumably sold well because of the obvious benefits of a GPS as against no GPS.
My only experience of a recent GPS unit was with a friend who uses a GPS 111 Pilot on top of the glareshield in addition to his panel mounted GPS 100. The Pilot did not seem to be any more readable. Do all modern portable GPS units still have this poor readability problem? If there are any which can be read as easily as the analogue gauges please let me know. I would like to obtain a portable GPS for aviation back-up and for land and marine use. I do not see the readability being a problem on land or in a boat but as it will have plenty of use in the air I do want to get one that can be easily read in a plane while wearing sunglasses.
Because of my experience with GPS poor readability I would be interested in knowing if so-called glass cockpit displays have the same readability problem, particularly if one is wearing sunglasses.
Many of my flights are eastbound in the early morning and westbound in the late afternoon, straight into the sun. Good sunglasses are needed and it is almost impossible to read the GPS. It is made worse by the units all being mounted in the centre stack so that the white shirt of the right seat occupant reflects off the glass front of the GPS display. Perhaps Garmin only tested the GPS 100 in the perpetual gloom of the Pacific Northwest!
There is no problem with reading all the other instruments with their clearly visible white numbers and needles. I am surprised that the GPS 100 was released with this weak display but it presumably sold well because of the obvious benefits of a GPS as against no GPS.
My only experience of a recent GPS unit was with a friend who uses a GPS 111 Pilot on top of the glareshield in addition to his panel mounted GPS 100. The Pilot did not seem to be any more readable. Do all modern portable GPS units still have this poor readability problem? If there are any which can be read as easily as the analogue gauges please let me know. I would like to obtain a portable GPS for aviation back-up and for land and marine use. I do not see the readability being a problem on land or in a boat but as it will have plenty of use in the air I do want to get one that can be easily read in a plane while wearing sunglasses.
Because of my experience with GPS poor readability I would be interested in knowing if so-called glass cockpit displays have the same readability problem, particularly if one is wearing sunglasses.